Champagne Dream Right Down Drain

May 24, 1990|By Jerome Holtzman.

While en route to Wrigley Field Wednesday, the thought occurred to me that this was the time to stop and buy a few squirts of champagne, the better to celebrate the opening of the new Cub season. At last, they were likely to reach the .500 mark and start over again.

All that was needed was a victory over the staggering Dodgers, who had arrived after an all-night flight from Los Angeles. Not only were the Dodgers weary but their pitchers were in shock, having been shelled for 38 runs in their previous four games.

Manager Tom Lasorda was as ebullient as ever and, of course, telling stories:

``I had this pitcher, Billy Graves, in Ogden, Utah. He was always complaining of a sore arm. Every time it was his turn he`d say, `I can`t pitch, I`m hurting.`

``I told him, `Billy, you`re going to have to get tough.` I give him my best tough-guy speech. Still, he wouldn`t pitch.

``I decided to look into his background and find out he attended a Bible school in Santa Barbara.

``The next time it`s his turn I said, `Billy, hold your arm out, from your shoulder. Does that hurt?` He says it doesn`t hurt. Then I ask him to put his arm up, point his hand toward the ceiling. That doesn`t hurt, either. The only time it hurts, he says, is when he`s releasing the ball.

``I said to him, `Billy, it only takes one second to throw the ball. Is that right?`

`` `Yes, he says, `that`s right, only at the instant of release.`

` ``Billy, you`re going to throw 100 pitches today. That means you`re going to be hurting for a one minute and 40 seconds. Now look at it this way: Jesus Christ was in a lot more pain than that. You should be able to handle a minute and 40 seconds.```

Lasorda chuckled at the recollection.

``And Billy Graves won his next seven starts.``

For many years Lasorda has been baseball`s acknowledged No. 1 motivator. But there is a limit to his skill.

``You walk into our dressing and you think you`re in the Mayo Clinic,``

Lasorda said.

And, of course, this led to another story.

``In my day, when I was playing, we only had one trainer, and all he had was a bottle of rubbing alcohol. And by the fifth he drank half of it.``

Orel Hershiser, the Dodgers` pin-up pitcher, is in the early stages of recovery from shoulder reconstruction, a complex surgery never before attempted on a pitcher. Hershiser is out for the season, maybe for two seasons, maybe forevermore.

Kirk Gibson, like Hershiser a 1988 World Series hero, is with the Dodgers` Albuquerque farm club on rehab. Reliever Jim Gott, also sidelined with an injury, is expected to be reactivated Wednesday. Third baseman Jeff Hamilton is on the DL with an ailing shoulder.

It`s been a long tale of Dodger woe. Still, Lasorda continues to express confidence and insisted, ``Everything`s outstanding except the standings.``

Three hours later, it was the Dodgers, not the Cubs, who had reached the .500 level.

They did it the hard way, with a come-from-behind victory. Down 3-0, they scored all four of their runs with an eighth-inning rally that included six hits. The big blow was a three-run home run by the lefty-swinging Kal Daniels off lefty reliever Paul Assenmacher.

``He`s the same guy who people said couldn`t hit left-handers,`` Lasorda said. The Dodgers acquired Daniels last season in a deal with the Cincinnati Reds. ``I guess they were wrong. I`d say he hits left-handers pretty good.``

Still, the Dodgers caught a break. There was more to their winning rally than Daniels` home run. Chances are Daniels would not have come to the plate if Luis Salazar had made a play on Lenny Harris` slow roller down the third-base line.

``It was bouncing foul,`` explained plate umpire Doug Harvey. ``One bounce foul, another bounce foul, then it apparently hit something because on the third bounce it bounced sideways-into fair territory.``

According to Harvey, Salazar had been straddling the line but at the last instant, convinced it was not a fair ball, shifted his feet onto foul ground. The ball then bounced to his left and Salazar reached over and caught it.

``It`s the position of the ball when it`s touched that`s the determining factor,`` Harvey said.

More than likely, Salazar had time for a throw. But he held the ball. And instead of two outs and a runner at second, the Dodgers had two men on and still only one out. Stan Javier`s single scored the first run. Daniels` home run came after pinch batter Eddie Murray had tapped to the mound for the second out.

After the game I mentioned to manager Don Zimmer that I had thought this was the day the Cubs would get to .500.